As you can probably tell by now (mostly Andy Monty probably), I'm rather lazy when it comes to maintenance of my car I still have a broken rear bumper and faulty electrics... Eep. Well last Tuesday I thought that was it for my car.

Travelling down the A414 I was being tailgated, as the outside lane was shut due to road works (I swear they need to repair the A414 every week). I was paranoid, so I kept checking my rear view mirror to see how close Mr Angry Audi was. On my third check, when I looked back my heart stopped - There was a f*****g small deer in the road! Saw it too late, and unfortunately hit the poor thing

Now I drive a 1.2, and in my opinion in the engine bay it seems like 1.2 might've been a slight after thought, as there's an unbelievable amount of space around that tiny engine block. Like, you could easily fit a couple of animals in there. Apparently this fateful night my car chose to prove that point.

I pulled over on the A1M to assess the damage. As I was completely shaken and worried, I failed to keep my lights on during the check (yeah...) and saw some hefty damage to the front bumper, but it was still attached. Seeing this I decided to drive the rest of the journey home and assess it there (I can feel some slaps coming my way).

Got home, and got the industrial heavy duty torch out, and whoa the damage is sad bumper in a sorry state, lost my grill (top one just about hanging on), near-side foglight cover is completely missing... But there's something weird in the grill...

Holy Hell, the DEER IS IN THE ENGINE BAY!.

So with the RSPCA and my Dad's help, we managed to get the deer out of the small bottom grill, still alive and seemingly unhurt. The guy on the phone was shocked to hear that it didn't limp away, oh no he sprinted like the car was gonna come for round two! The guy was happy to hear this, and said he'd note the area in case any injured deer reports come through. Stored my car in my garage and went to bed counting my lucky stars it wasn't more serious.

Next morning, expected to see some critical damage under the bonnet, maybe a leak here and there... Nope! The radiator has been pushed inwards, buckled in the supports, but the pipes and cables around and attached had not been broken, pierced or severed. Somehow, not only did the deer survive, but my Punto did.

I'll get some pictures up of the damage later, but for now the car seems to be running okay... Well, no worse than before really. I seem to be the luckiest unlucky guy this month! I was already looking at replacing the car with something more reliable (long story in itself), and it seems this event may have sped the process up

Sort of an ode to my car, it's served me well in my new driver years seems to have put up with me well!

EDIT: Deer I hit was apparently a Muntjac deer according to the RSPCA rep.

Ouch! At least you're in one piece.

What is about the Audi brand that seems to attract utter morons

Ben

Ben D said:

Ouch! At least you're in one piece.

What is about the Audi brand that seems to attract utter morons

Ben

Click to expand...

I don't know Ben, but my dashcam videos are mostly Audi's it seems ?

Just noticed after today's journey the radiator is just nearly resting on the engine block! Gonna have to get handy with some cable ties I think, until I can sort out a replacement car.

Wow you have a very rare vegetarian model

For some reason I can't edit my original post on the app, but here's the picture of the damage. It's also bent a mount for the offside headlamp and sheared a radiator mount.



Where you can see the second grille has disappeared, that's where the deer came in through, and was able to stand up in the space made by pushing in the radiator.

atleast bambi survived

flisko said:

atleast bambi survived

Click to expand...

In some kind of freak miracle! Lord knows how it fit in that tiny gap at high speed without taking so much as a scratch!